[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA, VA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 20



TEXAS:

CAPITAL MURDER TRIAL BEGINS


A Smith County jury began hearing evidence Tuesday about the life and
death of Cecelia Schneider.

Clifton Lamar Williams, 22, is charged with capital murder for the death
of 93-year-old Ms. Schneider, who was killed July 9, 2005. The defendant
faces the death penalty if convicted.

During opening statements, Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham
said Ms. Schneider was a widow who lived alone. He said that in the late
hours of July 8, 2005, or early hours of July 9, 2005, Williams entered
her house and killed her.

Bingham said her face was beaten badly, she might have been strangled and
she was stabbed three times, including once in the heart. He said her body
was "horrifically and totally burned," found lying on the floor in front
of her bed. Her 2 cats were found dead and her purse and car were stolen.

At about 5 a.m., July 9, 2005, Williams went to a friend's house outside
town, changed clothes and threw away the clothes he had arrived in. When
asked about the cut on his hand, he said a man had pulled a gun on him and
he had to stab him, and then he took his car, Bingham told the jury.

Ms. Schneider's car was later found wrecked on Greenbriar Road. The knife
used in the murder was found in a nearby pond, and the victim's purse was
found by the pond.

Bingham said a mixture of Ms. Schneider's and the defendant's blood was
found on the steering wheel of her car. Williams' fingerprints were also
found inside the tan Toyota Camry and a cigarette with his DNA was found
in the ashtray of the car.

The defendant called his girlfriend and told her to get out of his
apartment and lock the door, Bingham said. For about 6 days, Williams told
different people a similar story of stabbing a man who threatened him with
a gun. When one man heard the story, he called police and told him about
the defendant, whom he knew as "Crazy C." Police issued a warrant for his
arrest and, late on July 15, 2005, Williams was brought to police by his
father and uncle, Bingham said.

Williams told police he had never been to Callahan Street and denied any
involvement in the murder. He eventually said that he was forced by a man
with a gun to smoke crack cocaine and break into the home, and that the
other man stabbed Ms. Schneider with a knife from her kitchen. Williams
said the man forced him to cut his own hand and drip his blood in the
house so police would find his DNA, Bingham said.

Bingham said there was no evidence linking the other man to the murder.

Bingham said about $40 taken from the victim was used to buy drugs. He
said Ms. Schneider's body smoldered for hours in the sealed house before
the smoke could be seen.

DEFENSE

Defense attorney LaJuanda Lacy said the man who Williams claimed killed
Ms. Schneider told police he heard from Williams that he stabbed a man.
But, she said, no one Williams told about stabbing a man ever called
police.

Ms. Lacy said that according to the story Williams told several people, he
was threatened by a man with a gun, stabbed him, stole his car and wrecked
it.

Ms. Lacy said Williams, who was a mental patient at the Andrews Center,
denied at all times that he caused the death of Ms. Schneider. When he
began to tell police about the man who killed the victim, he became "very
tearful and cried," Ms. Lacy said.

She said the other man stabbed the woman as Williams cried out in protest.
He then covered the body with a blanket and set her on fire, Ms. Lacy
said.

She said there was no DNA or fingerprints that placed Williams in the
victim's home.

TESTIMONY

Mamie Johnson said Ms. Schneider came into the Tyler Senior Citizens
Center on Garden Valley Road 3 or more times a week to play games and eat
lunch. Ms. Johnson said Ms. Schneider was an independent woman, whom she
last saw on Thursday, July 7, 2005.

Ron Lewis lived directly across the street from Ms. Schneider's house at
311 Callahan St. He testified that his neighbor was "more like my
grandmother," and that he looked out for the woman. He said she was
extremely independent and wouldn't allow anyone to do much for her.

Lewis said Ms. Schneider had a schedule she followed each day, including
watering her flowers in the early mornings and evenings and attending a
Catholic church. He said she was extremely meticulous in caring for her
things, and not many people visited her home.

On July 9, 2005, he woke and looked out his window at about midnight and
saw Ms. Schneider's car parked in the carport and all of the lights on in
her house, he said. At about 4:30 p.m. that Saturday, he was alerted by a
neighbor that smoke was coming from her house.

He said he believed Ms. Schneider was gone because her car wasn't there,
but they called 911 and tried to enter the home to save her cats.

Lewis said that for more than a year before the murder, he had seen
Williams on the street regularly, visiting several houses. He said other
than walking through the backyards of Ms. Schneider and others, he did not
appear suspicious.

Firefighter Daniel Smith said he and Jamey Watson were the first to
approach the house at about 5:30 p.m. The front of the house was filled
with light smoke, but a back bedroom was "pitch black" because it was
filled with heavy smoke and they could only see an orange glow coming from
the bed. When they put out the fire, they discovered the woman's body, he
said.

Watson said the only thing on fire in the house was the bed, but the edges
of the floorboards and the carpet the body was lying on were glowing with
embers. He said he noticed there were 2 holes in the screen door, which he
thought was odd.

Watson also said it was odd that there were 2 fires - the bed and the
body, which could both burn for hours without causing big flames.

The trial, presided over by 114th District Judge Cynthia Stevens Kent, is
being held in the federal courthouse because of water damage caused by
weekend rains in the Smith County courthouse. Defense attorney Melvin
Thompson and First Assistant DA April Sikes are also trying the case,
which will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)






USA:

In world arena, being American is embarrassing


I'm writing for the voice of reason. It appears so few others are willing
to speak for sanity over insanity, for patience over violence, and for
love over hate.

I've witnessed firsthand the debilitating effects of the past 5 years on a
new generation. Many Americans, young and old, who dare to speak up for
peace over war, for rehabilitation over the death penalty, cannot put into
words "why." Their conscience tells them they're right, but the present
sociopolitical climate deprives too many of the ability to make solid
arguments for sanity.

I am not capable of making those arguments or of creating change on the
scale that's presently required, but I do hope to encourage those more
able than myself to speak out to their neighbors, to their newspapers and
to their representatives, for we are on the brink of a worldwide religious
war. We cannot afford to remain silent, for, as Edmund Burke said, "All
that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

On Sept. 11, prime time cable aired a special hosted by Ted Koppel that
explored the fine balance between security and liberty, and "The Path to
9/11" and "In the Footsteps of bin Laden" were broadcast. Our
representatives support openly profiling all Muslims as potential
terrorists. Many are pushing legislation that would legalize torture -
including "water boarding," a technique that resulted in our now
admittedly falsified justification for the present war in Iraq - in the
name of security.

After months of denial, our president admitted that there were (and are
and will continue to be) CIA secret prisons, and suggested that the war on
terrorism is a "global war" (he's now eyeing Iran and Syria).

Our great nation is becoming everything we hate. We're beginning to
produce a generation that feels "an eye for an eye" is justified, despite
the growing recognition that by severing the Hydra's head of anti-western
sentiment wherever it surfaces, we only create more terrorists in the long
term.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the world sympathized with the United
States. Now, we have lost the confidence and backing of many of our
historical allies. I'm afraid to take my kids on an international
vacation!

Never before in my short 30 years have I felt so despised as an American.
Our president's doctrine of preemptive war does not help.

Nor does the growing worldwide impression that we are a country bent on
economic and political strong-arming; that our lawmakers are beholden to
the "offense" industry (seen "Lord of War"?); or that as the world's
largest polluter, we exempt ourselves from the Kyoto Protocol - which 160
other countries have signed - aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.

And finally the true tragedy: The world sees Americans as too obese and
apathetic to change their country's direction.

We need action now. We need people to speak up for peace, diplomacy and
sustainability. The oil industry and its CEOs have made enough money, as
has the "offense industry" that supports it.

Our subsidies and energies need to be redirected to domestic concerns:
reducing health care costs (not subsidizing the pharmaceutical industry),
eliminating poverty (as opposed to accepting the growing gap between rich
and poor), educating our kids (not forcing them to all think the same),
and reforming campaign finance laws so that the poor but insightful may
represent their people and their country nobly.

Please don't be content to leave the fate of our country (and perhaps the
world) in the hands of a corrupt few. Help promote America as the great
nation it is: accepting of all who come to contribute and better
themselves, and thus the country; forgiving of those who trespass against
us; and steadfastly compassionate toward all who suffer the world over.

(source: Opinion, The Amarillo Globe-News -- Eric Folks is a resident of
Canyon)






VIRGINIA:

Dandridge's plea deal disappoints victims' family members, detectives


Ray Dandridge will die in prison for what he did.

For some family members of the people he killed, it is not enough.

"I feel he should have died," said Daisy Adams, the sister of Mary Tucker,
who was slain Jan. 6 in her East Broad Rock Road home along with her
daughter, Ashley Baskerville, and Tucker's husband, Percyell Tucker.

"I don't feel he should wake up every day and breathe."

Adams spoke outside the John Marshall Courts Building yesterday afternoon
after hearing Dandridge enter a guilty plea to the slayings in exchange
for 3 sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole or
appeal.

She was among a dozen or so relatives of the Tuckers who sat through the
capital-murder trial of Dandridge, 29, for the past 2 days. Had Dandridge
been convicted of capital murder by a jury, the panel could have
considered giving him the death penalty.

"He showed no remorse. Nothing," Adams continued. "It was just like he
didn't care. He gets to breathe every day, and my sister's gone."

The disappointment was not limited to family members. Prosecutors and the
teams of Richmond and Philadelphia homicide detectives who cracked the
case wanted the death penalty for Dandridge.

But doubt raised by Dandridge's defense team during the trial over exactly
whose actions, and what instrument, caused the suffocation deaths of the
Tuckers and Baskerville prompted prosecutors to negotiate a plea.

The doubt raised concerns that Circuit Judge Richard D. Taylor Jr. would
allow the jury to consider a first-degree murder conviction as an
alternative to capital murder. People convicted of first-degree murder can
face 20 years to life in prison.

Even if prosecutors had been able to win a capital-murder conviction,
getting a jury to return a sentence of death -- as opposed to life without
parole -- could have been difficult.

Defense and prosecuting attorneys acknowledged mitigating factors in the
background of Dandridge -- a high school dropout with a borderline IQ.
Evidence in the Harvey and Tucker/Baskerville slayings suggested he was
more of a follower in Richmond's New Year's week carnage to the homicidal
lead of his uncle, Ricky Javon Gray.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Baskerville and Tucker families,"
said Richmond homicide detective Sgt. Martin A. Kochell.

"We hope they can have closure and begin to heal."

Kochell called Dandridge a monster. "There's nothing good about him. And
he's going to be with people who are exactly like him."

Mary Tucker's other sister, Joanne Barnes, was also hoping Dandridge's
case would have gone to the jury and resulted in a conviction, with the
death penalty as punishment. But she said yesterday that she could be
content with the negotiated plea agreement that will keep him behind bars
for the rest of his life.

"I was happy when he said he was guilty, very pleased with that," she said
outside the courthouse.

"I think he got what he deserved. At least I know he won't get out."

(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)